BruceHartman.net

I’ve been very productive during the last couple of days thanks in large part to Ginny & David. Friday evening Ginny & I went shopping… we hit two Big Lots, the Pier One Closeout Store, and Wal-Mart. I spent about $150 and came home with curtains for the living room, curtains to cover the washer/dryer, fabric to make curtains for the kitchen (to include the sliding glass door, the bottom sections of the bookcases, and a vanity over the sink window), mini blinds for all of the small windows in the house, canvas totes for the shelf under the living room windows, and some miscellaneous chotchkes for decorating purposes.

I had planned to put up a single shelf to run under both windows and at some point, Ginny suggested it be made like a box so that some kind of storage bins could be used in it. I also had an idea to put shelves over the curtain rods over the living room windows, and both sliding glass doors. So Saturday morning I called David to see if he felt up to working on the box shelf and anything else we could do. I drew up a plan, drove to his house, and then we went to Lowe’s to pick up supplies. $70 later we had wood for the box shelf, and the curtain shelves, closet rods for the curtain shelves, and screws to put it all together.

Construction of the box went very smoothly considering how untrue the wood was. It seemed that none of the edges were square to any other, but with the help of David’s belt sander, the box came together very nicely. We left for my house around 5:00, but had to stop at Home Depot to see about brackets for the curtain shelf. When we were finally ready to install the shelf, David pointed out that I hadn’t allowed for the electrical outlet, so back to Lowes (for the fourth time in three days) to get a spade bit and a keyhole saw to make a hole in the back of the shelf for the outlet. The result in the living room so far is this:

I really couldn’t be happier with it. As soon as the curtain rod was up, Ginny pulled out the curtains we bought the night before and put them on the rod. The thing is, the curtains were on a clearance shelf, and there were only three of the same color, so we absent mindedly bought them all (not paying any attention to the length of any of them).

When the curtain rod was finally in place we discovered that by pure and utter dumb fucking luck, not only had the short curtain been placed correctly in the center, but that I had installed the rod in THE exact perfect spot to allow the short curtain to be of use. Incredibly lucky, in deed.

I still need to decide on a paint color for the box shelf and curtain mounting assembly. It’s a toss up right now between black or white…. any thoughts? Maybe I’ll put up a poll and let you guys decide.

Oh, and here’s the curtain over the washer/dryer if you’re keeping score at home. Yes, I realize they need to be ironed.

Today I’ll finish up the invitations for the housewarming party and take a couple of naps. It’s been a very productive few days, but I’m beat.